Report this post

Explain why you are reporting this post:(750 characters max.)

I like to think of this PvP like a fighting game. Each profession is a different character. Each with their own movesets and base stats. The difference and skill level comes from the player. Some characters will be easier to use than others, some more complex. Two people playing Ryu both have access to the exact same moves but it's the more skilled player that will prevail.

Now fighting games are pretty much the definition PvP. Two people going head to head in a pitched battle where skills are what matters.

Then you can unlock skins to make your character look much much cooler.

Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?

Report this post

Explain why you are reporting this post:(750 characters max.)

Originally posted by OldManFunkAdding a time sink so that players have to grind gear doesn't make the game any more balanced or fun. Good players who grind out the same gear as bad players will still dominate them if the game mechanics allow it.

The gear grind time sink is a hook to keep players subscribed and playing even after they are no longer having fun. How is encouraging players to continue to play after the game is no longer fun to play a good thing for players?

There is nothing wrong with getting bored. Think of the most fun activity that you can outside of playing games. Do that too much and you'll burn out and become bored with it.

If you're looking for an activity that requires a lot of time in order to obtain an advantage over others so that you can feel better than others then why not get a job?

Your right and if you read my post you will see I acknowledged it made good players great and great players amazing. What we are talking about is the skill bonus that is achieve (reward) for your time in game through gear. Its one of the things that keep people active in the game after they have taken the keep for the 3000th time.

Report this post

Explain why you are reporting this post:(750 characters max.)

Originally posted by snapfusion

Originally posted by OldManFunkAdding a time sink so that players have to grind gear doesn't make the game any more balanced or fun. Good players who grind out the same gear as bad players will still dominate them if the game mechanics allow it.

The gear grind time sink is a hook to keep players subscribed and playing even after they are no longer having fun. How is encouraging players to continue to play after the game is no longer fun to play a good thing for players?

There is nothing wrong with getting bored. Think of the most fun activity that you can outside of playing games. Do that too much and you'll burn out and become bored with it.

If you're looking for an activity that requires a lot of time in order to obtain an advantage over others so that you can feel better than others then why not get a job?

Your right and if you read my post you will see I acknowledged it made good players great and great players amazing. What we are talking about is the skill bonus that is achieve (reward) for your time in game through gear. Its one of the things that keep people active in the game after they have taken the keep for the 3000th time.

There are folks that need more incentive to play than just playing. There are many others that just enjoy the actual playing part of it.

It also allows terrible players through gear grinding to dominate at some level, (dominate the new players leveling up regardless of the new players skill).

In other words it allows everyone regardless of skill to feel powerfull to some extent and thats VERY applealing if you want to attract a wide market, which Anet wants to do.

It provides a progression system that keeps players active in the game.

You take all that away and eventually all your left with is a small group of elite players playing your game, so basically a dismal population.

No matter how much "fun" you think Anet has built into the game it will get old.

And with no progression to keep players moving forward most players will move on.

EDIT: Sorry about the paragragh block the line spacing wont take.

I disagree. Gear progression has both good and bad aspects. Point by point:
*****
Good --> great and great --> amazing. You provide no reasons for this opinion, so meh. In a gear progression system, better gear yields better performance. So what? So does practice and thought.
*****
Prop up terrible play; this is not necessarily a good thing. I've seen tons of complaints about grouping with people who don't know how to play their characters. Propping up terrible play with better stats can produce the reaction that the player is good enough and does not have to learn to be better.
*****
Gear progression systems indeed keep people playing a game longer if they want the shinies. GW2 has such a system; gear is available through Karma, and that can be gained by doing any event in game, not just a set dungeon or raid. The typical gear progression system is designed to support repetitive play in a small subset of the game's content. This gets old fast and so is not necessarily a good thing.
*****
Players will move on without gear progression incentives. That remains to be seen. It didn't happen in GW1.
*****
Fact is, the gear progression treadmill grind is a good thing for some players, but not for others. ANet is banking that there are "enough" in the latter category. I think they're right. You don't. Sounds like an agree to disagree to me.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw

It also allows terrible players through gear grinding to dominate at some level, (dominate the new players leveling up regardless of the new players skill).

In other words it allows everyone regardless of skill to feel powerfull to some extent and thats VERY applealing if you want to attract a wide market, which Anet wants to do.

It provides a progression system that keeps players active in the game.

You take all that away and eventually all your left with is a small group of elite players playing your game, so basically a dismal population.

No matter how much "fun" you think Anet has built into the game it will get old.

And with no progression to keep players moving forward most players will move on.

EDIT: Sorry about the paragragh block the line spacing wont take.

Weird, here's the basic unformatted text editor again.

Gear treadmill is closer to how to describe this phenom because it never ends in the case of mmos so it's not a natural thing, people get stuck in this endless grind spiral and can't enjoy anything. GW2 DOES have progression without the gear, it's called skill points. You put them wherever you want to enhance your toon, no need for gear.

Gear with enormous bloated skill upgrades do nothing but cause an inflation. Look at everyone's favorite, WoW. MoP as an expansion will most likely bring a huge DPS requirement ("What you're not doing 36k dps? NEWB!" would be what we'd hear next.)

It's also not good as a pvp standard, it allows players who already have it easy with macros on a tab target button masher, to have an unfair advantage over those other players who would otherwise normally beat them with no issues with skill.

So let's recap, just because there's a progression model there that you don't like, doesn't mean there's no progression model there AT ALL.

Report this post

Explain why you are reporting this post:(750 characters max.)

I'd much rather play a game with people who were having fun, than people who were burnt out but still forcing themselves to play so they can get that next item.
There's plenty of gear grinds out there. Options int he market are good. ArenaNet knows what they're doing. All is well :)

Report this post

Explain why you are reporting this post:(750 characters max.)

Gear progression is the worst thing that happened to MMO's ever PERIOD.
The only people it served are the no lifes who have the time for it, Id rather a game based on skill that you can enjoy without feeling you have to keep up with the Jones'
That was why I enjoyed SWG the most of all MMO's you grabbed a set of armour and off you went having fun, you didn't have to spend the best part of a 6 month grinding your ass off in boring raids or PVP to get gear that was needed just to be on an even par with others.

Report this post

Some people cant understand that the thrill of the kill makes them play instead of chasing a carrot that you never get :P

I enjoyed Arena in WoW. That's the ONLY way I made it through the thousand or so matches before I became good.
I'm not sure what you call it, but soon after I reach skill cap pwning bad players loses it's thrill. I know I'm better, you know I'm better. What's the purpose? This is were gear as in the form of a statistical upgrade becomes more of a motivating factor for me than cosmetics. Reaching the goal of obtaining said gear becomes my new fun.

Report this post

Originally posted by PurgatusYou mean we as gamers are going to have to play the game for fun, and not progression! (Shudder)

Correct for awhile, but do you think the fun is endless? Riding a roller coaster is fun the first 10 times but how many times would you ride the roller coaster if everytime you got off it you could do something you like a little better?

That's the main reason I get bored of gear progression games so fast.
Even the most exciting tough raids and dungeons get boring once you got them on farm, as are the repeatable fetch / kill 10 rats quests which is usually the only other end-game content offered in those games.
And when I'm bored I tend to stop playing or just use the game as a glorified chatbox / virtual world.
GW2 on the other hand doesn't force me to run the same select content until I get sick of it but rewards me for whatever I like doing.
And there IS gear progression, I don't like sticking to just 1 spec so I'll end up getting multiple sets of equipment on each character and to get all the maxed gear + mods for that will definitely take a while, probably as long (if not longer) as it takes me to get the new raid gear when I'm in a raiding guild in those progression games.

Report this post

Explain why you are reporting this post:(750 characters max.)

I think the OP makes a valid point. No matter how fun the game is, people will get tired of it and stop playing without a meaningful gear progression to keep them in the game. I think Anet is making a serious miscalculation with this... and I think there will be a massive exodus in a few months when people have exhausted the content and have no goals left to strive toward.

Report this post

Explain why you are reporting this post:(750 characters max.)

Originally posted by thamighty213Gear progression is the worst thing that happened to MMO's ever PERIOD.
The only people it served are the no lifes who have the time for it, Id rather a game based on skill that you can enjoy without feeling you have to keep up with the Jones'
That was why I enjoyed SWG the most of all MMO's you grabbed a set of armour and off you went having fun, you didn't have to spend the best part of a 6 month grinding your ass off in boring raids or PVP to get gear that was needed just to be on an even par with others.

That is a little harsh there. Some people do enjoy a gear grind, they like to know that all the time and effort they put in has made them statistically better then the person that has not.
Though I thank god that GW2 does not have a gear grind.

Report this post

Some people cant understand that the thrill of the kill makes them play instead of chasing a carrot that you never get :P

I enjoyed Arena in WoW. That's the ONLY way I made it through the thousand or so matches before I became good.
I'm not sure what you call it, but soon after I reach skill cap pwning bad players loses it's thrill. I know I'm better, you know I'm better. What's the purpose? This is were gear as in the form of a statistical upgrade becomes more of a motivating factor for me than cosmetics. Reaching the goal of obtaining said gear becomes my new fun.

To each their own but gear progressions to me has always felt like tacked-on artificial goals that attempt to motivate us to do things we wouldn't do otherwise: namely run that same tired old dungeon for the billionth time. I play these games to have fun and doing new things is part of that fun for me. Gear progressions feel like the dev is saying to me: "OK, you had your fun. Now we have something completely different for you...stamp collecting!"

Report this post

Some people cant understand that the thrill of the kill makes them play instead of chasing a carrot that you never get :P

I enjoyed Arena in WoW. That's the ONLY way I made it through the thousand or so matches before I became good.
I'm not sure what you call it, but soon after I reach skill cap pwning bad players loses it's thrill. I know I'm better, you know I'm better. What's the purpose? This is were gear as in the form of a statistical upgrade becomes more of a motivating factor for me than cosmetics. Reaching the goal of obtaining said gear becomes my new fun.

Report this post

Explain why you are reporting this post:(750 characters max.)

Originally posted by AnubisanI think the OP makes a valid point. No matter how fun the game is, people will get tired of it and stop playing without a meaningful gear progression to keep them in the game. I think Anet is making a serious miscalculation with this... and I think there will be a massive exodus in a few months when people have exhausted the content and have no goals left to strive toward.

That is definitely a possibility and for players that must have gear progression to feel complete in a game I understand why they would not enjoy GW2. But I know a lot of people that are just plain fed up with being tied to a video game.

Report this post

Explain why you are reporting this post:(750 characters max.)

Originally posted by Skarecrow7

Originally posted by thamighty213Gear progression is the worst thing that happened to MMO's ever PERIOD.
The only people it served are the no lifes who have the time for it, Id rather a game based on skill that you can enjoy without feeling you have to keep up with the Jones'
That was why I enjoyed SWG the most of all MMO's you grabbed a set of armour and off you went having fun, you didn't have to spend the best part of a 6 month grinding your ass off in boring raids or PVP to get gear that was needed just to be on an even par with others.

That is a little harsh there. Some people do enjoy a gear grind, they like to know that all the time and effort they put in has made them statistically better then the person that has not.
Though I thank god that GW2 does not have a gear grind.

Some do but then you provide the grind in another form to them. Faction for titles or fluffy pets or a new great weapon or armor skin etc you don't have to tie core gameplay stats to the grind. No game has got this right yet IMO.
I was subbed to SWG for 9.5 years (played it off and on though) and not once did I really feel like I had to grind, I stumbled upon my Jedi very early on a 7 prof unlock just off doing things I actually wanted to try. I loved space and RE'n but never felt like I was grinding parts for RE projects etc

Report this post

Some people cant understand that the thrill of the kill makes them play instead of chasing a carrot that you never get :P

I enjoyed Arena in WoW. That's the ONLY way I made it through the thousand or so matches before I became good.
I'm not sure what you call it, but soon after I reach skill cap pwning bad players loses it's thrill. I know I'm better, you know I'm better. What's the purpose? This is were gear as in the form of a statistical upgrade becomes more of a motivating factor for me than cosmetics. Reaching the goal of obtaining said gear becomes my new fun.

You're confusing grinding out gear and fighting players with a statistical disadvantage with you becoming a better player.

Report this post

Explain why you are reporting this post:(750 characters max.)

Originally posted by AnubisanI think the OP makes a valid point. No matter how fun the game is, people will get tired of it and stop playing without a meaningful gear progression to keep them in the game. I think Anet is making a serious miscalculation with this... and I think there will be a massive exodus in a few months when people have exhausted the content and have no goals left to strive toward.